The style works because she's going on an adventure of discovery and taking us along for the ride. Loose guesses that you hope are good enough are more fun tha

The style works because she's going on an adventure of discovery and taking us along for the ride. Loose guesses that you hope are good enough are more fun than exact calculations. It's fun watching Indiana Jones guessing how much sand he needs to equal the weight of the statue, and it makes him seem more heroic. In that case he might have been better taking his time to do it properly, though. Our minds are programmed to learn in a particular way: - Try stuff - See what happens - Try to guess at a rule that would explain why it happened - Test your guess by trying other stuff ... repeat until you know everything It's fun sharing that process with another person, and a pretty good way to learn too -- especially where precision is not important. Technical writers should use it more.